eGay & HDD's

[MYstIC G]

Righty, wanted an extra Sata HDD for my old box to turn it into a suitably large NAS box. Went on eBay and picked one up, just opened the box and they've sent me a Segate "Certified Repaired HDD". I'm quite pissed off about this because I deliberately filtered the listings as "New" and the one I bought clearly says "New" so I've got 2 questions if you guys can assist:

1. Anybody know anything about Segate repaired HDD's
2. Best practices for getting things sorted out using eBay's "not as described" process

Cheers

 

[Kryten]

Skip the first point entirely. It's not as you bought it, so they're not playing by the rules.
1. Speak to the seller - it's not a new product (but check that, does it specify "as new" in the listing) therefore shouldn't be listed in the "new" for filters to pick up. See what they say, with luck they'll be fairly amenable and just swap it/refund.
2. Failing that, go straight to a paypal dispute, don't bother going through any of the eBay processes (although they're much the same, it's just cutting out their own middleman.) Not as described, give the details as you've given them here, wait for the process. Paypal will require you to return it to sender fully tracked and insured.

Pain in the arse when people abuse the system like this And of course a good reason to avoid buying hard drives from eBay in the first place.

But as for Seagates repair process - generally it'll be a refurbishment, replaced platters if the head dropped previously or if it had bad sectors, a fresh firmware and a bit of spit and polish - nothing out of the ordinary. It's still second hand hardware as far as the spindle, heads and arm will be concerned.

 

[MYstIC G]

Yeah I know, my own fault I suppose. It just came down to the fact that the delivery charges on the websites I'd usually pick up kit from were complete BS.

Will have to wait until 17th then because eGay doesn't let you have an instant "not as described" claim.

 

[MYstIC G]

Well, I discovered that with paypal you can open the dispute earlier, so did that and have been told by paypal that the item has been refunded. So, looks like I'll be out of pocket a few quid for posting the drive back but I'd rather that than lose all my data at some point down the line.

 

[kirennia]

If you're after a large harddrive, Samsung SpinPoint F1 HD103UJ 1TB Hard Drive SATAII *32MB Cache* - OEM - Ebuyer

1TB with large cache for £75

 

[MYstIC G]

Yeah I've seen the link. That is very good but I really didn't want to hit the near £100 mark for a HDD.

Is it just me actually or is it v. confusing that all the USB plugin jobs seem to be cheaper when compared on a size for size basis?

 

[Sar]

My Mrs doesn't know it yet, but I'm getting a wee usb 320Gb external Hdd come payday. Useful for bringing stuff into work, and for hiding the porn on

 

[Embattle]

Yeah I've seen the link. That is very good but I really didn't want to hit the near £100 mark for a HDD.

Is it just me actually or is it v. confusing that all the USB plugin jobs seem to be cheaper when compared on a size for size basis?

The external HDs often have a bog standard drive inside since USB tends to be a the limiting factor.